


No Escape

by coldnerdytrash



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Tony Stark Feels, am i sorry? i am Not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 09:10:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17639912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldnerdytrash/pseuds/coldnerdytrash
Summary: "You've got to be fucking kidding me.""No, Stark, I am not 'fucking kidding' you," Fury said down the line, voice full of exasperation.  "You've got a mission, the both of you, and you will go on it, and you will succeed."Tony sighed and ran his hand through his hair.-Even though he doesn't want to, Tony has to deal with the ramifications of his latest mission at some point.





	No Escape

It was cold. So. Fucking. Cold.

That was all Tony could feel. He was curled up on his side on the couch with his knees pulled to his chest, staring blankly ahead. His eyes were dry from staring for so long and from how much he had cried. He was so damn empty inside, but it was an empty that hurt. So damn much.

He tried not to think about the events of the past week, but God knows he was terrible at not thinking about things. So, because the only thing Tony could manage to do when he didn't want to think about something was think about it, he relived the past week in his mind.

\---

"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

"No, Stark, I am not 'fucking kidding' you," Fury said down the line, voice full of exasperation. "You've got a mission, the both of you, and you will go on it, and you will succeed."

Tony sighed and ran his hand through his hair. He hated overnight missions with a burning passion.

"What does the mission entail?" Steve asked, sitting up and looking intently at the phone. Tony flicked his eyes over to his fiancé and noticed the rigidness in his back. _He's always so quick to go into Cap-mode_ , he thought.

"It's a three-day recon mission in France-" Tony's ears perked up, his eyebrows rising in slight excitement, but then his mood fell when Fury clarified, " _rural_ France. Which means no gallivanting, Stark."

"You have so little faith in me," Tony laughed.

"Should we expect a fight?" Steve asked.

"Always expect a fight, Rogers," Fury answered, back to business as usual. "I suggest some surveillance time before heading in, but you'll need to be back at the rendezvous point on the third day if you want to come home, so that means you've got to get in and get out relatively quick."

"I've got some new surveillance equipment I've been developing," Tony suggested. "We could use that. It'd probably help us go a lot faster than using anything SHIELD could offer."

Fury huffed but didn't disagree. "Just make sure it won't blow up. The information you'll be retrieving is vital to an ongoing investigation within AIM."

"Within?" Steve asked, his brow furrowed.

"I've got a few moles inside, even one at your point of interest. Which," Fury said, "means no making yourselves known. Period."

"Of course," Tony said. "Take all the fun out of it." Steve shot Tony a glance but he just shrugged. He knew the information was important, as was the mission they were to embark on sometime in the next twenty-four hours, he just wanted to get in a good deal of complaining to sate Fury.

"So it's simple," Steve began to recap. "Watch, in, out."

"Simple," Fury repeated in confirmation. "You'll receive the rest of your briefing shortly. Another SHIELD agent will have a car ready for you in two hours to take you to the airport, Captain."

"And me?" Tony asked, sitting forward and looking at the phone apprehensively.

"You'll fly in solo, Stark. Get a head start with that new tech you were talking about. I expect you to depart within the hour." And with that, Fury hung up.

Tony sighed and flopped back against the couch cushions, taking a last, brief moment of relaxation before getting up and prepping for the mission.

\---

For late May, France was quite cold.

Now, Tony wasn't _shivering_ in his suit, because his suit had heaters, but he knew it was cold because his heaters had actually kicked on to toast him up. Steve, who still wasn't a fan of the cold several years after waking up from the ice, was going to have a different opinion about the temperature being in the thirties.

While Tony waited for Steve to arrive, he set up their surveillance equipment and began watching the building they would be infiltrating in no more than thirty-six hours' time. It was fairly simple in layout and decently staffed. In only ten minutes of observation, Tony had guessed which agent was their mole (he came outside for a smoke within the first few minutes of Tony being set up just as their mole's voice piped up in his SHIELD mandated earpiece).

When Steve arrived, they set to work on more intense surveillance, watching for routines and lookouts. It was pretty quick work and they quickly found themselves bored while waiting for the staff to do their rounds. 

"So," Tony said, a few hours into their surveillance on the second day. "I've got a bit of a question for you."

Steve sat back against a tree and gave Tony a look, his eyebrow raised. "What kind of question?"

"Just wedding detail," Tony said, waving a hand as if it was nothing. He grinned as Steve rolled his eyes, a small smirk on his lips. 

"Alright, as long as you're not asking about my tux-"

"Which I'm not-"

"-then feel free," Steve told him, folding his hands in his lap. 

"I wanted to talk colors-"

"Didn't we already have this conversation?" Steve asked. 

"Yes, but I changed my mind on what we had agreed on." Steve rolled his eyes again at Tony's words. "Hear me out; instead of just blue, we could do blue and-"

Just at that moment, there was a loud explosion from the direction of the warehouse they were supposed to be watching. 

"Shit," Steve cursed as he jumped into action. He stood and grabbed his helmet, quickly jamming it on his head, and then his shield. Tony flicked down his faceplate and began to scan through the trees. 

"There's..." He was confused. They had both heard the explosion and it had sounded loud enough to have crumbled a wing of the building. But if that was the case, then why was the building perfectly intact, without so much as a small fire or smoke to prove something had gone amiss? 

"What the hell?" Steve voiced, catching on to the issue himself. "You heard that, too, right, Tony?"

"Yeah. I'd say anyone in a five mile radius probably just heard that," Tony confirmed. He was so confused. What was going on?

"That's just what we had hoped," said a voice in Tony's ear. The mole, except it wasn't. This voice had a distinct French accent to it instead of the perfect English their mole spoke. "Hello, Captain Rogers, Mr. Stark."

Tony opened his mouth to reply but saw Steve holding up his hand out of his peripheral vision: _don't_. Sometimes Tony hated how well Steve knew him.

Steve motioned for them to start out towards the warehouse when they heard another explosion. This time, though, they also saw it. 

"There went your mole," the voice in Tony's ear said. "Those were his quarters. _Boom_."

Tony's jaw clenched as he thought of the agent whose life had just been ended. They were failing their mission and it was quickly going to raise the number of casualties. 

"We have some families here as well. Families of innocents who think they're just doing regular scientific research. If you don't make yourselves known, well..." The man trailed off. "I think you know what I'll be forced to do, don't you, Stark?"

Tony took a deep breath but didn't respond. He looked to Steve just as Steve motioned for them to move again. 

"The longer you take, the more lives I will have to take. Tick, tock." Tony didn't doubt that the guy was serious so he didn't waste even a second of hesitation to follow Steve toward the building. 

\---

Tony knew he would never be able to forgive himself for charging into the situation without thinking and talking it through with Steve. They'd tried sneaking in but got caught immediately, having been noticed on their way over. They immediately disabled Tony's armor and forced him out of it the same way the Extremis soldiers had forced Rhodey out of his armor years ago and took Steve's shield.

They were unarmed but that didn't stop them from fighting off as many of AIM's men as they could before being overpowered by the enemy's numbers. They were bound and moved to a cell in the basement where they were watched by two agents with guns. That was where they found their mole, bound and bloodied. 

So he hadn't been killed after all. 

The AIM agent who had been in their ear and lured them in appeared soon enough. He knew who they were and what they were after and his only, continuously repeated question was who the other moles were. Steve and Tony didn't know, and it earned them both a lot of spilled blood. 

Then the agent saw their rings.

"Hm. I think I see an answer sooner than either of you planned to break." Then he had yanked Steve to his feet by his hair, twisting and making him hiss in pain and surprise. The agent pulled a gun out of a side holster that Tony somehow hadn't noticed and placed the barrel against the side of Steve's head. "Now. Let's see if you will tell me what I want to know. Names, _now_." Tony could see Steve's gritted teeth when the agent pressed the barrel harder against his temple. 

"We've both already told you," Tony spat. "We don't know. We didn't even know _him_." Tony jerked his head back to the mole somehow still clinging to life in the corner of the room. 

Everything that happened next happened in such a quick succession that Tony couldn't even quite register everything at first. There was an explosion, a single gunshot, and a scream.

\---

He barely made it out.

If it hadn't been for the SHIELD agents that burst in, Tony knew he would be dead. But he also knew Steve probably wouldn't be.

But that was the case.

Tony had escaped with his life and only a few broken bones, but Steve had found his eternal resting place, dying in the line of duty like he must have always been destined to.

He was dead but Tony was alive and Tony knew it wasn't fair. It never would be fair that Steve would come up short-changed to Tony, but now it was forever.

Tony had lost the love of his life and would never be able to forgive himself. Because it was his fault. It was his fault that he couldn't save the one person who saved him.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! feel free to follow me on tumblr @ staarrk :)


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